


Mirabelle Was Taken

by CatchingTomorrow



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Kirkwall, Pre-Dragon Age II, Rating May Change, Romance, Slow Burn, as canon compliant as possible
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-09
Updated: 2015-02-17
Packaged: 2018-03-11 07:47:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3319652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatchingTomorrow/pseuds/CatchingTomorrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Varric needs a mechanical expert, Bianca needs an escape from her stifling existence, and everything just seems to make sense. Until it doesn't.</p><p>My attempt at piecing together the clues and doing justice to Varric and Bianca's story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've been wanting to write this story since Bianca first showed up in Skyhold and my brain exploded. This is my best attempt at putting all the little hints we get from the games into one coherent story, with a liberal helping of my own ideas. I'll probably end up changing tags and ratings as it goes along, but I'll warn you if anything gets graphic. Please leave a comment below!
> 
> By the way, the title comes from one of the responses Varric gives in DAII if you ask him about his crossbow's name. It's a reference to a gun from one of BioWare's older games, Jade Empire, which I adored when I was younger. So it seemed appropriate. :)

If anyone could find profit in a funeral, it would be Bartrand Tethras.

"He hasn't left the office in days," said Lyna, nibbling her bottom lip as though Varric might reprimand her for his brother's lack of sense. "I leave food out for him, but he won't answer me. Keeps muttering about the Deep Roads. Like I know anything about the Maker-forsaken Deep Roads. Pardon my language, serah."

Varric sighed and patted her shoulder in reassurance. He had hoped that this time, nearly a week after their return from the funeral, Bartrand might be ready to speak to him. He had obviously made the mistake of predicting his brother's behaviour as he might a sane person. It wasn't grief; they had barely known their uncle, and Bartrand was hardly the sentimental type. If he himself was found dead in some dark Lowtown alley tomorrow morning, he doubted Bartrand would waste more than an hour in mourning.

Which would probably be because an hour after Varric stopped weaving his tapestry of puppet strings across the city, Bartrand would be assassinated. It's difficult to mourn with a knife in your back.

"If you'll excuse me, serah, I have to finish making lunch." She cast an annoyed look up the stairs. "Maker forbid he eats it for once. Pardon again, serah."

She bustled off to the kitchens, leaving Varric to remember in exquisite detail why he took such pains to avoid this manor. It was hardly the most ridiculous in Hightown, tucked away as it was in a corner of the district inhabited mostly by Merchant's Guild members of Bartrand's calibre, but its unnecessary size made him slightly uncomfortable. Two brothers and a maid could fit easily into a house a quarter as large as this one and still have room for all their furnishings and finery. The empty, echoing corners never let him sit entirely at ease.

Bartrand's office door was, as it had been on his last midguided attempt at visitation, locked. Varric stepped carefully over the half-empty bowl of cold porridge and knocked.

His brother's dulcet tones were unmistakable. "I told you to just leave it outside, I'll get it when I'm hungry!"

"Bartrand," he called through the doorframe. "It's me. Is your work really more important than your own brother?"

There was a surprised grunt, a shuffling of wood on stone, and then he was confronted with a full close-up view of his brother's unwashed, unshaven face. "Why didn't you say it was you?"

He stomped back to his desk and sat down, burying himself in the papers covering it like a parchment snowdrift without another word. For Bartrand, this was almost hospitable. Varric took the open door as an invitation to come in and picked his way across the room. The floor was covered in boxes and loose parchment, all thick with tiny dwarven letters and numbers. Mostly numbers, in fact. He looked away; numbers gave him a headache.

"You know," he said, "I'm sure that desk was made of oak once."

Bartrand looked up in confusion, then down at the paper-covered desk, and snorted. A few scrolls fluttered off the edge to join their comrades on the floor. "I've been busy. I'll file them later."

"I can see that." Bartrand's eyes were already back on his desk, searching through the piles of tiny black letters. Varric spoke again, louder, struggling to keep hold of his attention. "A little birdie down by the docks told me that a group of Tevinters arrived here yesterday, around midday."

"You call that news? Viscount might as well hand Kirkwall over to the Archon, the number of Tevinters he lets hang around these days."

"They came on a Free Marcher ship," he pushed on. "Only half a dozen of them, all dressed up, on a ship manned by Ostwick sailors."

Bartrand looked up from his desk. "So?"

"I just thought it was strange." And if he told him now, he wouldn't be able to blame him if they ended up causing trouble. But Bartrand wasn't one for pre-emptive solutions. He would care about the world around him if and when it became relevant to House Tethras and their profits, and not before.

"Are you finished telling me about interesting sailboats?" He didn't wait for Varric's nod. "Then look at this." He thrust a newly unearthed piece of parchment at him. Varric took it and squinted; it was some kind of map, all faded lines and little black labels. Age had yellowed the paper and worn away the ink in places, but it might still be saved.

"Most of this," continued Bartrand, gesturing around at the boxes of parchment that littered the floor, "is crap. I have no idea why Uncle Vidar thought I'd be interested in inheriting his household accounts or his kitchen expenses. But I know father left a lot of documents relating to House Tethras to him when he died, so I knew there must be some kind of profit to be had from all this. Some old Orzammar dwarf who owes us money, or an estate somewhere he never told us about." He grinned. When Bartrand smiled, it was never at baby animals or laughing children. He'd gained something from all this. The next sentence out of his mouth would end in 'sovereigns', Varric was certain. "We need to organise an expedition to the Deep Roads."

Varric blinked. "The Deep Roads? Why?"

"I always wondered why there seemed to be so little trace of House Tethras below the surface. It's not like we weren't influential, in our day. I knew there must be something more down there. I was right."

Some of the tiny, faded letters on the map were beginning to make sense. The more Varric squinted, the closer they came to resolving themselves into a word. "Bartrand, is this-"

Bartrand's stubby index finger landed right on top of it, almost punching a hole in the flimsy parchment. "Tethras Thaig!"

"You're kidding."

"I don't kid. This map is a disgrace, but look." He grabbed another piece of paper out from under a pile, sending the rest cascading across the desk. It was another map, newer and of a different scale. "This crossroads here is called Orvar's Choice on Uncle Vidar's map. I looked it up, and it's referencing an old folk tale about one of the first dwarven excavators of the Free Marches area. But this map," he pointed at the new one, "was made by Grey Wardens. Humans. They named it Esmachia's Fork. Don't ask me why. But it's the same place, see? This road coming off it is Zazikel's Defeat on the first map, but Starkhaven Approach on the second. Well, Zazikel was the Archdemon of the second Blight, slain just outside of Starkhaven. Tethras Thaig must have been lost to the darkspawn centuries ago, so it isn't marked on the Grey Warden map. It hasn't been rediscovered yet. But look: just adjacent to Zazikel's Defeat, you see? There it is."

It was at times like this that the existence of Bartrand's brain leapt from the shadows and took Varric by surprise. His narrow-minded obsession with business made it easy to forget that he could turn his mind to other more interesting pursuits as well. He just chose not to.

"I doubt anyone even remembers it existed," he continued, "so no looters. Imagine how much treasure could be left behind there, Varric. Treasure that's rightfully ours."

His eyes were practically glazed over, like a romantic imagining his one true love. His mind had left this dark office; he was in the Deep Roads, rolling in the pile of undiscovered money that was Tethras Thaig.

However much Varric wanted to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all, he couldn't quite bring himself to do it. Bartrand's logic was sound. Having grown up on the surface, he'd never really thought much about the world they'd left behind. He'd never even been to Orzammar, let alone headed an expedition to an outlying thaig. But Bartrand was a dwarf of the Stone and always had been. Whereas to Varric the Deep Roads were a story, a thing he had no reason to care about, they were real to Bartrand. And real things could be sold.

"I didn't even know we had a thaig," he said, still staring at the map as though daring it to lie to him.

"Of course we have a thaig. We were nobility. Every noble family has a thaig." He frowned. "Except the new ones, maybe. So what do you say? Are you with me?"

"With you?"

"For the expedition!"

Under Bartrand's impatient gaze, Varric allowed himself a moment to entertain the idea of a trip to the Deep Roads. Darkspawn, giant spiders, sleeping on damp stone floors, the Blight, rockfalls, fighting for their life, constant Bartrand. But on the other hand, money. Probably.

He shrugged. "Sure."

"Excellent. I'll be in charge of finances and logistics. I need you to find specialists. People who know the Deep Roads, experts on darkspawn, you know the kind. And one more thing." He bent down to retrieve a piece of paper from the floor. "This is an account of the layout of the thaig. It's not large, but it was well-defended. They make particular mention to the doors. Apparently they were designed to withstand siege weaponry, and the only way in besides tunnelling through half a mile of solid rock is to unlock it. Only problem is I haven't found a single mention of where the key might be."

"You want a locksmith."

"A locksmith that can get us past a lock mechanism twenty feet high and made of solid obsidium, yes. That would be ideal."

"So that's all, then? A master burglar who happens to be the size of a building?"

"There's bound to be someone in your list of 'little birdies' that knows somebody suitable." Bartrand took the paper back off him and slipped it into his desk drawer. "If you can get details on every ship full of Tevinters in the harbour then you can find someone who knows how to work a lock."

He sighed. "I'll keep my eyes open." Kirkwall was a city of lies and thievery; locks played an unusually significant part in the lives of the people here. They couldn't be looking in a better place. If he sent out word to his contacts in the Coterie, maybe the Carta cells nearby, they could find him someone.

"Just think, Varric." That glint was back in Bartrand's eyes again. It was that glint that had doubled the fortune of House Tethras before he had even turned sixteen years old. "Our family used to be one of the most influential houses in Orzammar. Their whole fortune would've been kept inside that thaig. A whole fortune, and it's ours."

A whole fortune, yes, but history as well. Who knew what kind of answers about their family history might be hiding behind the piles of money Bartrand was envisioning.

"Now get out," he grunted, shooing him away. "Go back to your tavern and get the word out. House Tethras needs Deep Roads experts, darkspawn killers and locksmiths. They're paying like you wouldn't believe."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who read the first chapter! I'm getting pretty excited about this. Sorry the first chapters have been so short - they'll start to get longer soon.

Everything they said about Kirkwall was true. It really was a Maker-forgotten den of crime, dirt and depravity, with its only redeeming feature being the fact that it was easy to find boats to leave on.

Bianca Davri had never loved a city more.

Her parents had tried their best to instill a healthy amount of fear in her before they'd arrived. "Kirkwall is not like Tantervale," they'd told her. "Every second person is a criminal out to hurt you. Even the dwarves there are untrustworthy. You must be careful, and do everything we say without question, and never leave the house ever even if you're really, really bored because we dread the thought of you ever having fun."

It had been something like that, anyway. She hadn't really been paying attention.

She'd done as they said for the first few days, obedient daughter that she was. She'd sat on her bed in their new house and watched the servants unpack their boxes, fumbling her things and putting them in all the wrong places. Her parents were right; this was nothing like Tantervale, and perhaps better for it. This house, right on the border between Hightown and Lowtown and far from any dwarves she knew of, had none of their old manor's high stone ceilings or sharp angles, hallmarks of a dwelling place of people who wanted to believe they were still in Orzammar. "Don't worry, dear," her parents had said, "it's only temporary." But the warmth from the fireplace in the parlour could be felt all the way up in her bedroom in this modest house, and she thought she could get used to that.

Bianca Davri, however, was not made to sit inside and embroider handkerchiefs. When the Tevinter traders her parents were supposed to be dealing with were, apparently, delayed, and their stay here in Kirkwall became indefinite, she realised that action was going to have to be taken. There was a city to explore right outside her window, and danger began to seem more of a promise than a threat. She was twenty years old, after all. Far too old to still be deferring to her parents over every morning stroll.

"Bianca," her mother had said, pursing her lips, "I understand this is asking a lot of you, but what would we tell Bogdan if you were hurt? Or kidnapped? Kirkwall is a dangerous place for a girl like you."

"A girl like me?"

"Well, you're hardly worldly, are you?" Her father smiled indulgently. "That's a good thing, dear. Thedas needs more purity and innocence. But here, it could get you killed."

Bianca sighed. Perhaps it was time to compromise. "I don't expect you to let me out whenever I want." _Ancestors forbid._ "I will inform you when I leave and where I plan to go, and I'll never be out for more than three hours at a time."

There was a short, contemplative silence. "Two hours," said her mother. "And you never leave Hightown."

And so the walks had begun. For the first week, sticking to Hightown had been no challenge. She explored the residential districts, marveling at the opulence of manors' high spires and perfectly tended gardens, staunchly resisting the temptation to break into those few that seemed abandoned. She had wasted a whole two days at the markets without buying anything at all. The Chantry and the Palace had taken hours to explore; they weren't too different from their counterparts in Tantervale, she concluded, but each had differences quite distinctly Kirkwallian. It was fascinating.

It wasn't long, however, before Hightown's pristine white streets began to bore her. And so, after leaving her house in the direction of the markets, she circled back around and headed towards the enticingly raw maze that was Lowtown. Exploring, as she was, during the day, she had no choice but to decide that her parents' paranoia was simply that. After three days, the most danger she had faced was a runaway fruit cart. But while the risk involved seemed disappointingly small, the place itself offered far more colour than Hightown. She took to visiting it every day, browsing the markets, visiting shops and taking long strolls to nowhere in particular, simply enjoying the chance to have no-one looking over her shoulder.

The docks were her favourite place to walk. Most people she'd talked to disdained it, citing the crowds, the noise and the everpresent smell of fish as their reasons, but Bianca had never seen a place of such life. The markets cluttered the thoroughfares by the wharves, the merchants fighting to shout loudest about how amazingly cheap their fish, produce or useless trinkets were. Out on the piers, dock workers hauled crates off ships flying flags from all corners of the continent. Being dwarven, she often went unnoticed, a small empty space in the crowd that jostled her from all sides.

Picking her moment, she slipped through a gap in the rising tide of humanity and disappeared into an alley between a clothing shop and a foundry. A dead end for all intents and purposes; the warehouse at the end of the alley had been abandoned by all honest business for years.

Good thing Bianca's employer was not an honest businessman.

The warehouse had once held factory equipment until the company that owned it had gone bankrupt. It had sat empty and unloved for years before the Coterie, loathe to pass up free premises, had commandeered it for their own uses. The exterior was still dirty and dilapidated, thoroughly abandoned as far as any nosy passerby was concerned, but the flurry of recent activity had made the inside almost habitable. On mornings such as these, a dozen workers sat at benches or on the floor, painstakingly making her ideas reality.

"Hey, Marna!" The overseer of this makeshift factory, a human man who went by Samyan, broke away from the group on the floor and hurried over to her. He was always so cheerful when he spoke to her, but he was old enough that such cheerfulness should have shown in the lines around his eyes and mouth. It didn't, so she guarded her trust carefully. "Having a good morning?"

"Excellent," she said, and meant it. "How are things going?"

"I think you'll be excited. We met our quota for last week with dozens to spare and not a single one has been seized by the city guard. We normally lose at least one in twenty. One in twenty, when we're shipping hundreds out and in every day - that adds up, you know?"

She nodded. "Glad I'm making a difference to your operation."

"Not mine, Marna, not mine. Speaking of which, I was asked to tell you how pleased the bosses are with your work. You can expect to advance very quickly around here with a brain like yours. Keep it up and you'll soon be the one profiting, if you catch my meaning. Also, I have a letter for you."

"A letter? From who?"

He shrugged. "Don't ask me. Came from a courier this morning, asked me to deliver it to you. Someone wants your attention."

He handed her a single parchment envelope. It had no address, just her name written neatly across the front in black ink. She broke the seal and unfolded the letter.

_Serah Marna Irvak,_

_First of all, I would like to congratulate you on your swift and celebrated entry into Kirkwall's underbelly. The Coterie is singing your praises on street corners. I myself am curious to know where you've been hiding for so long and why I've never heard of you before, but I'm sure such business is your own. I'm told that you have more than a knack for mechanics, and I find myself in need of someone of your abilities. Perhaps we can help each other out. If you aren't averse to a little adventure - and a lot of coin - then meet me in the Hanged Man at sunset tonight. Ask for Varric Tethras. He's looking forward to meeting you._

Tethras _._

She'd heard that name before. She rolled it around in her mind, looking for a match. Wasn't there a dwarven house by the name of Tethras? Yes, that was where she knew it from. House Tethras was part of the Merchant's Guild. And based in Kirkwall, if she remembered correctly. She'd never heard of Varric before, though. Well, she certainly wasn't averse to adventure. The coin was neither here nor there, but people seemed to insist on giving it to her for things she would've done anyway, given half a chance. Perhaps this Varric Tethras person was someone worth meeting.

She folded the letter back into its envelope and tucked it into her pocket. Sunset wasn't for many hours yet, and she had the rest of the day to play inventor.


End file.
